Agenda item

Walney Offshore Windfarm

Guy Kenyon, Senior Planning Officer –
Major Development and David Haughian,
Strategic Programme Coordinator – Nuclear gave a brief
outline of the planning process from the county council’s
perspective. The application was a
nationally significant infrastructure project and the council were
the lead Authority. The development
consent for the application would be submitted in May
2013. It was the Planning Inspectorate
role to then make recommendations to the Secretary of
State. Barrow Local Committee views
would be sought during the summer, with the Development Control and
Regulation Committee considering the Local Impact Report just
after. A report would then be submitted
to Cabinet for them to consider and reach a view on the
application. The Council’s Local
Impact Report and comments will then be made to the Planning
Inspectorate in late summer 2013.
Examination of the application commences in autumn 2013.

The Committee then received a presentation
from Cliff Pullen, Emily Marshall and Peter Sills from DONG
Energy.'The proposal, if
successful would be the largestoffshorewindfarm in the world.
Although,there were a few bigger
windfarms, which are
onshore. The consultation
process began in 2010 with a number of stakeholders. Consultation events undertaken in 2011 and 2012
had 275 and 367 participants respectively. Out of those consulted in 2011 66% supported wind
turbines in the Irish Sea, 59% supported the Walney extension, 38% agreed it created jobs and
36% did not know. In 2012, 55%
supported wind turbines in the Irish Sea, 43% supported the
Walney extension, 31% agreed it would
create jobs and 38% did not know. Mr
Sills stated that the general level of support had reduced slightly
between the first and second round but added that it was quite
normal in his experience and in general, support remained
high.

Mr Worth noted that 43% supported the
extension and asked if that meant that 57% were against it, or if
there were some not knowns/undecided. He
was informed of those 28% did not know and 29%
disagreed. Mrs Macur queried the number of those from the local
area who were in support. The focus had
been on those communities who would have a
seascape/landscape/visual impact and feedback forms gathered from
the 7 local events asked for participants postcodes. The data was then plotted onto a map which showed
they all lived within a five mile radius of the
extension. Of those from Walney and Barrow, 7 strongly agreed, 11 agreed, 5
did not know, 2 disagreed and 4 strongly disagreed. Mrs Burns garnered from the response that the
majority of participants were residents of Douglas on the Isle of
Man. Her assumption was correct and
their main concerns were to do with the shipping lines, 33 strongly
agreed/agreed, 39 did not know and 34 disagreed. Ms Marshall added that the key concerns raised by
the community was the environmental impact, local economic impact,
community fund, impact on sea users and the size of the
turbines. Mr Roberts added that the
maritime issue was obviously substantial and asked who had been
consulted. The Navigational Working
Group, Trinity House, Fleetwood Nautical Camp, Steam Packet Company
and Sea Truck and other users of the Irish Sea had been consulted
from the outset.

The Chair was concerned that the photo montage
of the viewpoint from Walney was not to
scale and believed it did not reflect what local people
observed. He was informed it was a 360
degree view, giving a flat perspective which should be viewed in
the curve. They could not show the
complete scale as yet, because it was not finalised.

Mr Pullen gave a breakdown of the estimated
£11.5m in economic benefits to the area, based on
construction of Walney 1 &
2. The Chair requested a copy of the
breakdown along with the estimated number of jobs that would be
created. The Chair asked for the
current output of Walney 1 & 2 and
was informed it was 560MW. He noted
that the area had received only £15,000 in community benefits
last year. If the average was
£1,000 per MW then the benefit expected should have been in
the region of £560k.
Historically, community benefit packages had been sought for
onshore windfarm developments but DONG
were open to the possibility of a Community Benefit Fund inline
with other developers. The Chair
believed now would be a good time to make a commitment to a
community benefit scheme. In response,
Mr Pullen replied that the proposal was still in the project stage
and it would not be appropriate.
However, Mr Haughian reported that a
letter had been submitted by the county council to DONG asking them
to consider how a community benefit could be
calculated. He added that a Community
Benefit package was completely separate from the planning process,
as were any socio-economic benefits.

Mrs Burns understood the need for renewable
energy but her preference was for a bridge across the Bay that
could generate electricity using tidal power. She wondered if DONG would have put the
application forward, had it not been for the significant government
subsidies. It was her belief that the
extension was not as ‘green’ as DONG made out due to
the turbines being manufactured overseas and shipped
in. There was an already highly skilled
manufacturing workforce in the area, that had the potential to
produce the turbines. Mr Pullen, in
response to the points raised explained that the turbines were
procured from an overseas supplier because there were no
manufacturers in the UK. The estuary
did not generate enough tidal power to produce electricity and in
any case nuclear submarines took precedent in the area. The government subsidy had reduced from
£1.9m to £1.8m but they still believed it was
worthwhile. In reflection Mr Roberts
agreed that a mix of energy was required and hoped they took
onboard all that was said by members.
However, he did consider that the company’s profile in the
area needed to be raised. The Chair
thanked the officers and representatives from DONG for their
presentation.